It is common manufacturing practice in the electrical industry to mount terminals on circuit boards by means of mounting legs which are dimensioned to be received in circular holes in the circuit board. The mounting legs are usually, but not always, soldered to conductors on the circuit board after insertion. In the manufacture of circuit boards having terminals thereon, the terminals may be inserted by machinery or manually at one work station and are usually handled and transported at a later time to other work stations for subsequent operations such as soldering of the terminals to the circuit board conductors. It is important, therefore, that the mounting legs be capable of holding the terminals on the circuit board prior to soldering with sufficient security to prevent their being removed prior to the soldering operation and during all handling subsequent to insertion.
The mounting legs for terminals, in accordance with present practice, may be dimensioned to have an interference fit in the circuit board hole or they may be designed to provide a resilient force on the walls of the circuit board hole after they are inserted. Prior art terminals having mounting legs of these general types are acceptable if the dimensions of the mounting legs and the diameters of the circuit board holes are such that the terminals are retained in the holes. However, if the circuit board holes are oversized relative to the dimensions of the mounting legs on the terminals, frequent problems are encountered in that the terminals tend to fall from the mounting holes. Manufacturers of electrical equipment are frequently troubled by such problems for the reason that they usually obtain their circuit boards from a remote source and they have limited control over the manufacture of the circuit boards. A manufacturer of electrical equipment must, therefore, frequently solve problems involving oversize circuit board holes and resulting insecurely placed terminals on a circuit board by the use of added manpower and reworking and inspection of the circuit boards immediately prior to soldering.
It would be desirable to improve presently available mounting legs for terminals in a way which would permit the use of the mounting legs in circuit board holes of varying diameters beyond the variations in hole diameters which are acceptable for presently available mounting means on terminals and thereby avoid problems as discussed above, which are presently being encountered. The present invention is directed to the achievement of improved mounting legs for terminals which can be used in circuit board holes having a range of hole diameters.